Development of an adjustable rectangular pulse electrical overstress test system for electronic device robustness and dynamic response characterization.

Abstract

With the increasing incidence of electrical overstress (EOS) failures in electronic devices, investigating the behavioral characteristics of integrated circuits under long-pulse-width and DC electrical stress is crucial for enhancing product reliability. Conventional surge stress tests are primarily pass/fail-oriented and lack dedicated research-grade methodologies and instruments for analyzing device behavior under prolonged pulse width and high current, hindering the establishment of a quantitative basis for top-down EOS protection design. In this study, we present an EOS test system with multiple adjustable parameters to simulate diverse EOS conditions. Under a 50 Ω matched load, the EOS simulator achieves a minimum rise time of 8 ns (adjustable to longer durations), a voltage amplitude of 50 V, and a square-wave pulse width tunable from 5 µs to DC. The maximum output current amplitude varies with pulse width, reaching up to 540 A under short-circuit conditions with a 300 µs pulse width. The system is utilized to perform experiments on a transient voltage suppressor, revealing previously unobserved triggering behavior under long-pulse-width stress and elucidating its failure process and the failure threshold curve. Furthermore, an efficient test methodology for such conditions is proposed. This system supports comprehensive device characterization, transient behavior analysis, behavioral modeling, and systematic EOS protection design.